


The Man in Green

by Melusine10



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Growing Up, Imprisonment, Innocence, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jotunn | Frost Giant, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Post-Avengers (2012), Slow Build, sweet!loki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine10/pseuds/Melusine10
Summary: Loki was befriended by a young girl in New York immediately following his failed attempt to enslave Earth. Throughout Norah Fall's childhood, he regularly visited in his projected form and helped her through the rough and tumble trials of youth. Loki has always been her hero, but now that she's a grown woman, Norah ends up becoming his savior as well. Just how many times will the God of Mischief find himself needing her help?





	1. I'm a god

**Author's Note:**

> I began this story way back in 2014 and I never posted it on AO3. I'm curious what folks think. I might finish it if there's interest. 
> 
> Ch. 1-2 are rated G, Ch. 3 13+ because it very briefly portrays a date gone wrong (absolutely no non-con). The rating proceeds to lean towards "mature" as Norah ages. I do see this as potentially becoming a properly "mature" rating and would like to go there, again, if there are interested readers. There's a lot of fun that could be had with Jotunn Loki.

Norah Fall was a toddler when New York was attacked. The images of that day scar the memories of every American. That fateful day transformed her life, more so than most. One minute Norah's preschool playmates were scrambling over the jungle gym in Central Park, with peels of giggling laughter rolling out of their little mouths. The next, a shadow fell across the city and plunged the world into chaos. A battalion of alien ships settled over them in the sky. Their class took shelter under a picnic pavilion, cowering under the protective arms of their teachers like frightened chicks. The battle raged overhead, laser shots zinging dangerously close and caped crusaders fighting their way through hordes of invaders. The entire experience was surreal - terrifying and yet impossible - like something out of a movie.

When the tide of the fight had finally turned and the war was won, the band of brave heroes who had saved the planet regrouped in the park. The gathered not far from where the children had weathered the storm. Norah remembers how Captain America hoisted one of her playmates up. Their teachers cheered and cried at the same time, offering the Avengers, as they would come to be known, profuse thanks for saving them in a fight no one could understand.

Yet the tall man in green - a man Norah had clearly seen warring alongside the other caped heroes - was in chains, muzzled like a vicious dog and ignored as his comrades celebrated. Her young mind could not accept how such a thing could be. He was a superhero too, was he not?

The beautiful man stood haughtily, shoulders squared. He cast an arrogant gaze about his surroundings, revealing nothing but disdain in his features. Nothing, that was, until he felt the eyes of a curious child burning into him. He caught the tiny slip of a creature staring at him from across the field and for a brief moment, his eyes softened. In them, Norah saw fear. Instinctively, she snatched up a stray dandelion, roots still attached, and ran to him, breaking free of a schoolteacher's restraining arm.

Blame her actions on the blind ignorance of childhood or say that it was the pure compassion of a little girl's heart – that was how others dismissed it. This was certainly how her parents explained it to themselves. Such are the lies adults tell themselves to smother an awkward reality and make the world seem rounder and more manageable. But the world is not that way, now is it? It is a wild garden, full of the inchoate and inexplicable. As she ran across the plush grass towards the stranger, his raven black hair swirling frantically about his head, he seemed to be made of just that – mystery and magic and the untamed things that are life incarnate.

Norah came to an abrupt halt before him. He towered over her, expression blank. With chubby fingers, she offered him the flower, blinking with wide eyes and brushing her unruly bangs from her face. He took it gingerly in a cuffed hand and looked at it in fascination. Not far behind her adults were screaming in horror and sprinted to retrieve her, closing the distance between them. He quickly pointed to a pocket, dipping down so the child could reach inside. She withdrew a small figurine carved in green stone. Her eyes lit up with joy and he held up a single, pale finger over his metal muzzle. Norah gave him a wide smile and stuffed the toy down her pants, hiding it. The man in green gave her a secretive wink just as world spun topsy-turvy. Someone had grabbed her roughly and tossed her over their shoulder.

~OOO~

It was several weeks after the attack in New York when the man first came to visit her. He materialized right before her eyes. Without a word, he bent over to peer inside her dollhouse, inspecting the miniature room where his statue had been carefully tucked into a bed. He then sat down cross-legged on the bedroom floor beside her.

"Hi!" she squealed. "Did you come to play with me?"

The man nodded. He appeared to blanche slightly, then his whole disposition brightened. "Name?" he asked. His features didn't move in tune with his voice. The sound seemed to carry on the very air itself as a disembodied whisper into the shell of her ear.

"I'm Norah. These are my ponies." She gestured to the plastic horses lined up on the carpet. "That's Sam, my stuffed dog. Mommy says he's a toy, but he can come to life when no one sees. What's your name?"

He smiled, displaying a row of perfect white teeth. "I am Loki of Asgard."

"Hi Loki. I don't like your friends. They're poopheads. Wanna play a game?"

The apparition threw back his head and laughed heartily, though not a single sound issued forth. He stilled and only then did she hear him. "I love games, poppet. What shall we play?"

Norah leapt up and began to divvy the horses between them, explaining the family relations in her imaginary herd. She tried to pass him her favorite black stallion, but it passed through his palm. "Are you a ghost?" Norah whispered.

"I'm a god," he replied with a wolfish grin and a twist of his eyebrows.

* * *


	2. The Gateway

He came to her often in those first years. Loki spoke little, as it seemed to tax him to conjure sound. He could manipulate objects, but that tired him even faster. Norah was happy to burble away at him, telling him about her friends, her secrets, her dreams. Sometimes Loki would disappear for a length of time, only to return and exhaust himself by reading her to sleep with their favorite book of fairytales. On other occasions she could simply feel him in the air. She recognized the crackling signature of his energy and knew he was around, keeping an eye on her.

On her eighth Christmas, she awoke to find a heavy checkered board game on the bedroom floor, wrapped with a huge satin bow. It looked like chess, but was organized with a green team in the middle surrounded by a larger force of red. It had all the pieces save one – the king at the center of the board was missing. She happily realized she had the game piece all along, secreted away in her dollhouse. It was a relief to finally understand where the statue belonged. She giddily placed it into position.

"The concept is simple," Loki explained in his velvety voice. "In life, we always begin at a disadvantage. What you do next is both a matter of choice and skill. How will you gain the upper hand when you're flanked by enemies on all sides?"

"So I'm green?" The diaphanous illusion rolled his eyes and nodded. The child shrugged. "Okay. But this is just a practice round. It doesn't count if you win."

"Fine. Now, you must _always _protect your king," he said silkily.

Loki taught her the rules of play and, in time, she would become a formidable opponent in the old Norse game called Hnefatafl.

~OOO~

Her parents ignored her monologues then, assuming they were the idle chatter of an only child and her imaginary friend. As she grew older, her mother and father argued at night when they thought she was asleep. Norah was just immature, her father pointed out. There was something wrong with her, her mother countered. She talked to _that _man. The ugly way her mother uttered the phrase curdled in Norah's mind.

"The books say you are a bad person," she said to Loki one afternoon. He appeared lounging in her bean bag. Norah was eleven years old.

He shrugged and threw aside the horse camp novel he had found. He had been thumbing through it. "This is trash. I'm getting you something useful. Perhaps you'd like Aeschylus?"

Norah was too agitated to be distracted from her war path. "Did you do it with a horse?" He shot her an unconvinced look. "Hmm. Okay. Did you ditch your wife and kids?" He shook his head. "Do you now or did you ever have a wife and/or kids?" she clarified, mimicking the lawyers she'd seen on tv. Norah knew too well how Loki could twist the truth around the edge of a single misspoken word, let alone a poorly phrased question.

Another firm head shake.

"No? Are any of the stories true? Did you cut off all that girl's hair?"

He looked confused. 'What girl?', his expression seemed to say.

"Sif? I read about her too." He raised his eyebrows, his expression a little too smugly confident. "Liar, liar pants on fire," she retorted. "You did!"

He laughed in his beautiful, carefree manner. Leave it to a little girl to pick apart the Lie-Smith's fibs. Norah could not help but giggle along with him. The breathy, bell-like ring of his laughter was contagious. It was also easily one of her favorites sounds in the world. "You are real, even like this, right?" she asked, growing sullen.

The question earned her a nod.

Norah dropped her voice to a whisper. "No one knows what happened after the war. I've tried to look it up online. I think the government covered it up. There aren't even any pictures of you, just weird websites that swear you were in Germany. Where are you, Loki?"

He gave a wry smile and waved his hand.

"Oh, you're around? You dork! You don't take anything seriously. " Norah sighed and changed the subject.

~OOO~

In the late spring of her fourteenth year, she nursed a huge crush on a ginger-haired boy in her biology class. When Norah finally wound up the courage to ask him to the 8th grade dance, the boy laughed in her face. She bravely carried her broken heart back home without shedding a single tear. It was the single, longest bus ride home ever.

Only once she had collapsed in the respite of her bed did she let herself cry for hours over the cruel rejection. Loki lay next to her, listening. Though his eyes darkened angrily when she described the gut-wrenching part where the boy had called her a 'fat bitch', he did not pour honeyed words into her ear in some feeble attempt to make her feel better about the meanness of the world. Instead, he offered her the solace of a perfect confidante. He didn't think it necessary to mention the enchantment he had woven as she talked through her feelings. The boy would be cursed to a year of severe acne the moment he next laid eyes upon her.

"I wish you could be my boyfriend," she complained with a huff, wiping her smeary face.

Loki quirked an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Well, okay. You are _way _too old for me and that's totally disgusting. Like a couple thousand years too old. But still, you're cute for an ancient dude, you're mostly nice, and you're a god, so you're prolly rich as hell. You have an actual castle. Too bad my Prince Charming is just a magic beam of light." She dramatically smacked her arm through the spot where he lay, just to emphasize her point.

Loki narrowed his eyes. "Too bad my flower girl is a spoiled brat!" he teased and popped out of sight.

A few days later she discovered a stunning green gown in her closet. The plunging back was daring, but tasteful. A note attached read:

_You'll be Belle of the ball; no need for a loathsome Beast. Save the first dance for me? ~_ _L_

It was always like that between them. They talked, they bickered. They teased one another and laughed far too hard. He was her constant and closest friend and she was his, at least she liked to think that.

She told him everything and he told her many things, albeit in brief spurts as his energy allowed. Some topics were taboo, as always seemed to be the case with adults. Loki spoke fondly of his rowdy and mischievous childhood, but would not discuss his relationship with his brother later in life. He spoke of his mother with the greatest tenderness, but grew clammy when asked about his father. Norah's imagination was so full of Loki's incredible descriptions of Asgard that she felt she knew it as well as her own hometown. She dreamed of it often, picturing her raven haired prince looking out of one of the gilded palace's shining towers. And yet when she demanded to know Loki's present whereabouts, he would smile and distract her with a riddle or a tale, or sometimes, he would simply disappear.

~OOO~

Though she was careful to keep their conversations private, Norah occasionally slipped up and spoke a little too loudly or forgot to close her bedroom door. One day her mother overheard one too many times. It was the poor woman's breaking point.

Then there were trips to psychologists and child development specialists, and finally, to doctors who strung her up to bleeping, buzzing machines. The so-called "experts" entreated her to admit her invisible friend was pure fancy. At first, Norah defended herself. They did not relent. Give up the childish games, they said. She calmly explained she talked to a god.

That lovely confession earned her a short stint at an in-patient treatment facility to rehabilitate her "fixated" personality. It was a miserable experience. Apart from the short-tempered nurses and self-important doctors, when she finally admitted which god, precisely, she spoke with, SHIELD descended on the hospital and unleashed their full wrath upon her. Two agents dragged her into a relentless, seven hour interrogation about her knowledge of the God of Mischief. They had been watching her - tracking anyone who had any contact with the supposedly non-existent Loki Odinson. SHIELD had done a fine job at covering Loki's involvement in New York, erasing his every trace, though to that very day a staunch group of conspiracy theorists and outliers like her claimed otherwise. Finally, they deemed her knowledge too superficial to be significant and cleared her as a non-threat, but not before submitting a strongly worded recommendation that she continue her psychotherapy treatments.

"Crazy fangirls," she heard one agent quip as they packed up. "Why do they always go for the bad boys? Why can't they just get obsessed with Steve Rogers? Sure would make our lives easier." He cast a dirty look back at her over his shoulder.

The worst insult was that Loki never once appeared to comfort her. She lay in a cold room bunked with several other 'nutty' girls, utterly alone and beginning to question her sanity. When she finally returned home, months later, it wasn't long before Loki showed up. His complexion was wan and he had a crazed look in his eyes. "Where have you been?" he hissed, shoving an accusing finger in her face.

"Where have I been? In a loony bin where they lock up psychos who think they talk to god! Where the hell have _you _been!" Norah flew into an irate rage, hurling everything she could get her hands on straight through his illusory form. She railed at him, tears free flowing. "They wanted me to believe I'm crazy! I'm not crazy!" A piggy bank she'd had for ages smashed against the wall, sending an explosion of copper pennies and porcelain shards in every direction. Loki held his hands up for her to stop. "You shithead! You left me all alone!" she ranted. "It's your fault I was locked up there to begin with! SHIELD had a field day with me. They were ready to drag me off to their lair until I convinced them I didn't know anything – which of course I don't. You've ensured that, haven't you? I had to lie my way out! Thank the gods you've taught me that much!" she spat hatefully.

Loki closed his eyes and steadied himself as he often did before conjuring his person more vividly. He disappeared, but a sudden pressure wound around her arms, solid and squeezing her into a gentle, invisible hug. He had rarely ever mustered the magic to touch her before and Norah broke down into sobs.

"I am so sorry, poppet." Something pressed into the palm of her hand. It was her king game piece.

"I don't feel like playing." He pushed at it again, purposefully. "What, Lo? Use your big boy words," she said irritably. She definitely did not feel like dealing with his mischief after what she'd endured.

"The gateway," he said, sounding spent.

Norah stared at the figurine, running a thumb over its familiar surface. The realization dawned on her. "Oh my god," she gasped. "You can't find me without it." He hadn't abandoned her. Rather, she had been lost to him too in the strange hospital so far from her usual haunts. Norah had been uprooted so quickly she had never even had the chance to tell him where she was headed. All this time she had been cursing him when he had no doubt felt the same. "You never explained," she wept, full of regret at their misunderstanding.

"I thought you knew," he replied somberly.

From that day forward, she never left home again without the king piece.


	3. Fair Warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you will have noticed, the M rating is preemptive and thus far unwarranted, but as Norah gets older her language becomes saucier and the themes will become a bit more explicit. I should also include a very minor *trigger warning* here for brief allusion to a potential non-con situation in the first few lines of the chapter.

When Norah was seventeen, she invited a boyfriend over to her place when her parents went out for the evening. Technically, this was against her parents' rules, but she was practically an adult anyways, right?

Wrong.

As she and her date crunched on popcorn and laughed at a dumb movie, she could feel the air bristle with Loki's presence. She could tell he was agitated, but ignored him. Later, as she clumsily made out on the couch with her guest, things started to move too quickly. "Wait, Chris," she said, pushing him back gently. He persisted, trying to undo her jeans button. "I said no! What is wrong with you?"

The boy tried to further force himself on her and she screamed, shoving him roughly to the floor. Loki suddenly appeared behind him, ferociously choking the teen and snarling like a hellcat with a mad grin. The boy struggled, sputtering, trying desperately to pry off the unseen hands that held his throat in a crushing grip. He tore at his neck frantically, scratching himself hard enough to draw blood.

"You're going to kill him! Stop!" Norah cried.

Loki hesitated, then dropped the boy to the ground with a dull thud.

"What the fuck was that?" the boy screamed, gasping for air.

"My guardian angel, you asshole. Now get the hell out of here!"

He clumsily gathered his shaking limbs underneath him to flee. "Freak!" he hissed at her, frightened beyond the pale.

"You tell anyone and you're dead!" she retorted, throwing his pants at him and slamming the front door.

Loki reappeared, sitting at the foot of the stairwell. He was panting from his efforts, hair mussed. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly. His face was drawn bowstring-tight with anger.

"I'll be okay," she said, slumping down against the door. "Thank the gods for you," she sighed, running a trembling hand over her mouth.

He gave a haughty snort and tamed a chaotic lock of inky hair behind his ear. "I doubt any god but my dull brother is thankful for me."

"I saw him on tv again, waving his stupid hammer around. What a dilhole."

There was a long beat of silence between them before either spoke again.

"If you are ever in any grave danger - if there is another attack on this realm, for instance - you must find him. He will protect you where I cannot, Norah Fall." Loki's eyes shone with tension. He was loathe to admit his limitations, and even more hesitant to recommend his brother's company to anyone, most especially to her. "Promise me," he insisted.

She drew in a long breath. "I promise."

"It was lucky I could muster enough energy to incapacitate that fool. What were you thinking, associating with such dregs?"

"'Dregs'? He's just an idiot classmate with too many hormones. It got out of hand, but I could have taken care of myself. Stop treating me like I'm some helpless little Asgardian damsel in distress. You don't have to defend my honor."

Loki stood abruptly, fists balled with shimmering green magic swirling about them. "Helpless?" he ground out between clenched teeth. "Any Asgardian shield maiden would have decapitated him before he could have blinked. What he got from me was a slap on the wrist by comparison." Norah started to shoot off a nasty response but he cut off her reply. "And you're a stupid, silly girl to think I defend your honor. No, darling. I do not defend your honor. I defend _mine_. You. Are. Mine!" he barked, tendrils of his magic spinning dangerously all around him.

Shock chilled down Norah's spine. Before she could utter a word, Loki's projection flickered like a dying light bulb struggling to maintain the last bit of its luminescence. He had stretched himself too far, used too many words, used the last of some immeasurable reservoir of strength. "You've exhausted yourself. Go rest."

He gave a thin, wistful smile and faded entirely.

The next morning she found a section of newspaper folded on her bedroom desk. An advertisement for a martial arts center was circled, accompanied by a note scrawled in the margins in Loki's familiar hand.

_Tae kwan do, capoiera, and tai chi will teach you (respectively) to be deadly, nimble, and focused. You have six months. _

It was signed as usual with an elaborately swooped and curling ornamental '_L_.'

Norah gasped in disbelief at his audacity. Loki had never interfered in her life. He had never demanded that she pursue something so high-handedly, though not surprisingly sometimes his interests did influence her own. But the same could be said of him; most of what Loki seemed to know about "Midgard," as he called it, came from her.

Almost instinctively her first urge was to refuse his request, if it could even be considered such. It was outrageous, not to mention costly. "Villain!" she cursed, stomping her foot, just as she did when he beat her in Hnefetafl (which was most of the time).

Yet his declaration last night had stunned her and she couldn't help but feel the queasy unease of disappointment. If she was reading his vague missive correctly, Norah wouldn't see him for half a year. Had using his projection physically taxed him that much? He'd never been away so long. She worried about him – about what he was hiding from her and what she would say when he returned. She consoled herself with the thought that at least this break would give her the necessary time to digest what 'being his' meant, or more importantly, what she herself wanted it to mean. It all seemed so confusing. She was still a kid. He was an immortal god. Did he expect her to be his vestal priestess, for crying out loud? She loved him to pieces, but there was no way in Hel she was going to worship the man! Loki had told her one too many fart jokes for her to ever take him that seriously.

~OOO~

In the months that followed, Loki's absence proved more difficult than she anticipated. There wasn't a day that went by where Norah didn't catch herself talking to him, though never once did she feel the telltale crackle of magic energy in the air that announced his presence to her. She coped by throwing herself into the martial arts classes he had "suggested" and wrote long letters to him. She would leave these and other little gifts out in his favorite sunny spot by the window – dog eared books she had enjoyed, a goofy Lego action figure she made in his likeness. Occasionally they would inexplicably disappear and it warmed her to know he had transported them to wherever he was. She tried to cultivate her friendships at school, but she struggled to invest herself fully in others knowing how soon they would all scatter to the wind. It was her senior year of high school and the more Norah tried to be a good mate, her thoughts increasingly turned to college and what the future might bring.

~OOO~

She should have known better when the second alien attack struck in London. Loki never spoke out of turn, never uttered something that wasn't somehow significant. Had he not, in his own sly way, warned her of impending planetary doom? The least the jerk could do is come straight out with it, not casually drop a "Oh, hey by you might want to call Thor when aliens attack" and slink back into whatever intergalactic gateway he used to beam up to her side.

Norah was studying for final exams at her friend Rachel's house when the girl's mother tore through their study group screaming to turn on the news. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" the woman kept repeating, pointing stupidly at the television.

Norah froze. She didn't dare breathe. They all watched as a terrifyingly familiar portal opened over England. "Switch it to BBC," Norah calmly asked.

"What? Oh my god we're all going to die!" the woman blubbered incoherently, turning up the volume instead.

Norah carefully pried the remote from her hand and changed the channel. "If this is outside London, they'll have better live coverage on BBC," she explained. "Let's just see first what is going on. Maybe it won't affect us?"

For the next four hours they sat glued to that tv set, watching with bated breath. The broadcast kept replaying brief footage of Thor dropping through a hole in the sky, but nothing seemed to be happening. A giant spaceship settled over Greenwich, yet no army marched forth.

"Where are the Avengers?" Rachel cried. "Where are they? What is even happening right now?"

Norah felt numb and flashbacks of New York seemed as fresh in her mind as the day they happened. Her phone lay on her knee at the ready, a number for the creepy SHIELD agent who had once grilled her dialed, waiting for her to press 'send'. If necessary, she was ready to give herself up, if only in the hopes that the agency would connect her with Thor. She figured they probably wouldn't help her, but she owed it to Loki to try. Part of her kept hoping she would catch a glimpse of him on screen. Yet what would that mean? She didn't know whether to be relieved if she saw him or even more frightened.

Loki had intimated over the years that he may have, quote, "inadvertently encouraged," the first invasion of Earth, but he insisted it would have happened with or without him. There were mitigating circumstances, he claimed, although he refused to elaborate. Norah knew this to be true, otherwise what could explain why he stiffened at the mention of those events, or why he subconsciously pulled at the vambrace that covered an especially nasty scar on his left wrist? There was far more to the story than anyone knew, and whatever it was, it was seriously bad business.

In the end, Loki blessedly didn't appear on screen, either for or against the alien horde. Thor halted the incursion with the help of a smallish, mouse-haired physicist and the realm was saved yet again. Once the excitement drew to a close and Norah's friends realized they were safe, the girls began to chatter giddily about the God of Thunder and his golden mane and fluttering red cape. "Hey guys, I'm gonna head out," Norah announced to a completely uninterested audience.

"Uh hmm," Rachel continued, not hearing her. "Oh, and did you hear how tall he is in real life? You know what _that _means!" Norah quietly packed her bag and left without another word.

~OOO~

Seasons came and went. She graduated school with flying colors and spent the summer in Sweden to learn more about Nordic culture. It was a phenomenal time, full of far flung travel and European nightclubs and amazing art galleries. Rachel and a couple other friends accompanied her, but she couldn't help but feel that it wasn't the same without Loki.

Soon enough it was time to start college. He'd now been gone well beyond his promised six months. In the early days of his absence, Norah had almost been grateful to have time to think about her relationship with the opaque, mysterious god and where he fit into her life. Now all she could do was pray that she would ever have him in it again at all.

In her darkest moments she'd beseeched the sky, crying up to Heimdall, whom she knew actually stood guard over the Nine Realms. She hoped beyond hope that he might take pity and send her a sinister sylph in emerald leather. At first she tried asking sweetly. Nothing happened. Then for a spell she attempted variations of jokes about how Heimdall might benefit from watching Loki screw up in Midgard, or how Loki was such a jokester he probably couldn't even run Ragnarok right. Maybe she was a lousy comedian or perhaps Heimdall lacked a sense of humor, because that failed to work as well. Norah wanted to hurl insults in the end, but she figured that might be a bad way to ingratiate herself with Asgard's elite, so she turned to Frigga instead. She read up on praise poems offered to the goddess and made garlands of flowers over which she poured honey and left under ash trees in offering. It felt completely stupid, but she also knew there was a chance, however small, that one of these Viking space aliens might actually hear her and throw her a frickin' bone. It turned out she didn't have much longer to wait.

True to form, just when she least expected Loki, he appeared as though he had never been gone at all. "What a dump!" she heard him exclaim in disgust.

"I know, but it's supposed to be part of the whole college experience," she answered automatically. Norah suddenly paused over the box she had been unpacking in her dorm room. After all this time, she still imagined the silken voice in her head. She chastised herself inwardly for thinking her god had returned. Just to prove how silly she was, Norah tossed her long dark hair back in a huff and cast a glance over her shoulder. What she saw made her nearly collapse of a heart attack.

Loki stood in the middle of the common area, towering over her in full royal armor, larger than life. He gave her a caddish, lopsided smile. "Miss me, poppet?" he asked, cocking his ridiculous horned helmet to the side.

Norah dropped the box in her hands with a crash and bolted to him.

"Loki! Look at you!" she gasped. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck – or punch him in the shoulder. She wasn't sure which. If only he could be solid for once.

She scurried to shut the door to the bustling hallway where parents and freshman were similarly busy moving in.

"I believe I owe you a belated birthday gift. But," he said, popping the final consonant with a click of his teeth, "You have to show me you've earned it. Let's see your fight training."

The smile dropped off Norah's face. "What? C'mon!" Norah circled him, trying to see what he concealed behind his back. He had something in his hand, tucked behind his long cloak.

"Ah, ah, ah. No cheating."

"Says the King of Cheats! Show me, Lo!"

"That is absolutely no way to speak to a god. Now let's see how the young shield maiden progresses," he said with glee, practically prancing in excitement.

She tried bargaining, explaining that there wasn't enough space in her crowded double suite to demonstrate her fighting skills. Loki was having none of it. Unfortunately, that meant waiting around until she could schedule a room in the practice gym.

By the time she was finally able to squeeze a slot into her schedule, Loki was no longer giddy about the test. She went through her paces in front of a very grave looking apparition and it made her unusually nervous. He studied her movements with excruciating intensity. When she bowed to him after her demonstration, he mumbled something disparaging about her "idiot mortal" teachers. Loki's projected form didn't mutter unless he intended for it to be heard.

"Seriously? You're freaking me out over there Mister Stern and Serious. It's not helping that you so obviously think I suck."

"It is not you, darling. You're clearly just reproducing what you've been taught. It is the flaws of your so-called masters that concern me. Begin again," he ordered.

"Loki, you realize you have been gone almost a year? That might not seem like much to an immortal being but I missed you terribly! I haven't been waiting around for you to return just to play ninja with you. Don't you want to know how I've been?"

"Again!" he barked sharply, cutting short her pleas. Norah shook her head in dismay and acquiesced. Loki stopped her multiple times to correct her stances, shifting an elbow in an inch, nudging her heel outward. She quickly found her movements felt far more fluid and connected as she kicked and punched her way through the air.

"Better. Now the Tai Chi. Let's try it together." Loki bowed and began to mirror her every move, copying the measured paces as her exact opposite. They glided effortlessly across the mats in a strange meditative dance. When she finished the routine, Norah felt more relaxed than she had in ages. She felt whole again. Not realizing she'd closed her eyes halfway through the exercise, Norah opened them to find Loki had popped away, leaving a polished wood box in the middle of the floor.

She knelt down to inspect it. The wood had an extraordinary luster and the top was engraved with the ornate helm and crest of Loki's divine heraldry. Norah ran her fingers over the deep etchings and swallowed as she unfastened the latch.

She gasped, unable to believe what lay before her.

Nine razor sharp, perfectly deadly throwing knives gleamed back up at her. The marbling in the Damascus steel was so fine and precisely hewn that it resembled the bark of a sacred oak; the blades were so immaculately crafted that these ribbons and swirls in the metal reflected the light in dazzling rainbows. She suspected they might be enchanted and didn't dare touch them until Loki explained their provenance.

"Thank you," she finally said, barely audible.

He was still somewhere nearby. He gave no reply. Instead she felt him ghost a kiss at her temple and dissipate into the ether.


	4. An Aggressive Player

Loki's throwing knives were a stunning, if not bizarre, gift. He was really taking this whole self-defense thing seriously, but Norah couldn't really imagine testing them out, let alone using them. Despite having joined a new dojo when she relocated to Chicago, her skill level was certainly a long ways off from integrating weapons into her training. Nevertheless, she cherished the set; it had been crafted on another world, for crying out loud! Not one to snub her nose at divine gifts, she carefully stored the box in her closet. It reminded her of the other Asgardian item she possessed and how long it had been since she'd had the opportunity to use it.

Hey Trina?" she called to her roommate. "Wanna play a boardgame?"

Norah dug out the Hnefatafl board and began setting it up on the coffee table in the common area.

"What the heck is that?" her roommate scoffed.

Norah tried to explain, but Trina's eyes quickly glazed over with disinterest. She blew a large bubble with her gum and snapped it dismissively.

"Try the chess club, girlfriend. I'm sure those nerdboys will be more up to your speed. I was going to go meet Chad soon anyways."

Norah huffed but forced a polite smile. She had intended on pointing out to her roommate that she had the hots for a very lovely but very uninterested gay guy, but if she was going to be a nasty witch for no good reason, she could figure it out the hard way. Truthfully, Norah had hoped she and her roomie would become fast friends, but the prospect seemed more and more unlikely. They were simply not on the same wavelength. A day ago that might have seemed disappointing, but now everything seemed different now that Loki had returned. And he'd kissed her. Sort of. Norah tried to ignore the excited, flippy feeling she had in her belly.

~OOO~

In the musty basement recreation room, a group of boys hunched over a chess game and animatedly clocked their moves on a counter. The basement was also occupied by a couple kids she recognized from the fourth floor playing beer pong. Judging by how sloppy their aim had become, they had been at it for a while. In the far corner, a line of laundry machines that noisily ground through their cycles, adding to the general din of subterranean noise. Norah watched the chess club from a distance before venturing up to introduce herself.

"Uh, hey guys. I'm Norah."

"Sup," one grunted in response.

"Can I play winner? Or is there a line?"

"Nah, you can play next," said the boy currently playing the white side of the board. "I'm just about to win," he boasted, slapping the timer.

His opponent made a move and he quickly tapped his king into place. "Check mate, dude." He looked up at Norah with a self-satisfied smirk. "Name's Zach," he drawled lazily, adjusting his heavy, black plastic glasses.

"Hi." Norah took a seat across from him and chewed her lip, inspecting the board.

"You look nervous. Do you play much?"

"Sort of, I mean, I haven't played for a long time. I wanted to brush up because, well…A friend of mine is in town and I'm a bit rusty. We play a different version though."

"Well if you don't know the rules, maybe you should study up first. I'd feel bad totally annihilating a girl." He turned to laugh with the other boys.

Norah narrowed her eyes at the taunt. Nothing rubbed her the wrong way worse than a sexist jerk. Thankfully, this paled in comparison to Loki's trash talk. He would purposefully try to get a rise out of her in order to teach her how to focus the animosity caused by barbed words into laser-like determination. It was always games layered upon games with the God of Mischief.

"Oh you like to talk smack, is that it Zachary? Or is it Zachariah? Remember that in five minutes." Norah reached down and picked off several of her black game pieces, tossing them back into the box top on the cement floor.

Whispers erupted amongst the spectators.

"What are you doing? That gives me an unfair advantage," Zach scoffed, unimpressed.

"Everyone always thinks you're weaker when the odds are against you. Let's see if you're right," she said with a fake smile. She could almost hear Loki's effusive laughter in her head. It felt good to stretch her tactical muscles.

They got down to brass tacks and the game progressed speedily. Several moves in, Zachary shifted uncomfortably in his dumpy lounge chair and declared that she was a "really aggressive player."

"Aggressive? Oh, sorry, you must mean 'good,'" she retorted, snatching another of his pieces. In a few more moves, the sandy haired boy snorted when Norah exposed her queen.

"You _do_ know the queen's most powerful piece on the board, right? I mean, you have _actually_ played before?" he mocked.

Norah locked eyes with his.

"Of course. It is the most versatile piece," she countered as he greedily snatched up her queen. "But then, you seem to be playing the board, while I'm playing the player."

It was a perfectly executed trap. "And Zach? You forgot the most important rule," Norah licked her lips and clicked her king into place. "_Always_ protect your king. Check."

Zach blanched and made a couple flailing attempts to outrun her, but to no avail. In the end, she was the one doing the annihilating. Several of the group grilled her with questions afterwards about how she was able to turn the game so quickly, having started with such a disadvantage. She did her best to answer provisionally, without mentioning the "oh I grew up playing an ancient version of chess with the God of Lies in my jammies" part. Norah went a few more rounds with the others before calling it a night. She felt satisfied that she had sufficiently warmed up for her next match and looked forward to challenging her favorite opponent.

~OOO~

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"You still haven't answered my question!" Norah barked, pounding a fist on the now forgotten game board between them. The pieces clattered; several toppled. Their argument had grown more heated and she took a breath to calm herself, worried someone in the hallway might hear. "Loki, please. Enough with all your dissembling and dissimulation. Just tell me what happened."

It was patently clear something major had happened during his yearlong absence. It had been weeks since he'd reappeared in her life and he still refused to discuss the attack in London. It didn't even make sense as to why – no one had been hurt in the end. Moreover, he simply changed the subject when she demanded to know why his projections were stronger than they had ever seemed. He was manifesting far more physically than she could ever remember and talking for long stretches, even into the early hours of the morning. They danced around the same, worn-out question: where was he?

"Don't I deserve to know?" she asked, feeling rather pathetic.

"Are you incapable of enjoying something while it lasts, woman?! Let it be!" he snapped finally, angrily running a hand through his long mane. Since his return, his projections wore it in a wild tumble well past his shoulders.

Norah paused, dissecting his words. "While it lasts…you mean you expect your projections to grow weak again?"

"By the Norns, she can deduce! We have a philosopher in our midst, methinks!"

"God dammit, Loki Odinson!" Norah screamed. She didn't mean to, but he'd pushed her too far. Whatever tight lid she'd kept over her frustration and pent-up resentment cracked. "Did you come back to just to be cruel? To return only so you could push me away with your mean words? What could you possibly gain from that? From taunting one stupid mortal? Surely you have more important things to do."

The flood of tears followed.

"I prayed, Loki," she cried between sobs, "I honest to god _prayed _to Heimdall and Frigga. I was so lost without you."

Loki's eyebrows knit together as he watched Norah crumple in on herself, looking more like that vulnerable child he was knew than the beautiful young woman she had become. She seemed to him so small on that wretched lump of furniture she called a 'futon.'

"You…? You made exhortations on my behalf? To my mother?" he asked, incredulously.

"Loki, I was like a crazy pagan lady squirting honey all over bouquets and begging the skies to have you back. I didn't know what else to do. I thought maybe she would hear, that maybe…"

He held a hand up, trying to digest what she was admitting. He went to say something but words caught in his mouth. He gaped for a brief moment, then snapped jaw shut with a pained look.

"Oh, my darling flower girl," he finally whispered, sinking down next to her on the couch. His strong arms laced around her, pulling her in. She slumped in his hold and let the tears flow, hot and angry down his emerald tunic. The flat planes of his figure's projection were smooth and lacking in both texture and warmth, but he was there – a firm presence against her. His hair brushed against her cheek like an indistinct whisper.

"How are you here like this?" she whimpered. "I don't even understand. I…I can feel you."

"A good meal and a bit of rest does wonders," he sighed, running circles over her back. Norah didn't understand the joke he was attempting and didn't bother asking.

"Are you sure there isn't a way to re-bedazzle the king piece? Make it stronger or make it so that you could summon me to you? I would go to you..."

"You know I cannot."

"Are you sure there aren't any real Midgardian sorcerers?"

He sighed deeply. "If only."

"I wish I could do magic."

"Me too, love. Me too."

~OOO~

Norah doodled in distraction before her business writing course began. She was slumped down in her chair retracing the outline of a swooping, abstract wolf design in blue pen when Zach sat down next to her. She vaguely registered that he was asking her about next semester's classes.

"…and so if you wanted, we could both knock out our physics req together."

"Hnn," she murmured.

"…especially since you're into Vikings…Is that Viking? Or Celtic? I can never tell the difference." Zach asked, pointing to her wolf drawing.

"No, it's…" What? Was she about to say Asgardian? A design from Loki's armor? Loki, with whom she was still arguing? "It's Viking," she grumbled.

"Okay, yeah, so you know, taking that physics class together might be fun. Maybe Dr. Foster will tell us about Thor -"

"Thor?" she gasped, now paying full attention.

"Norah! Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm sorry, Zach. I spaced out. You were asking about taking a class together?"

"Yes! Jeesh! I was saying that Dr. Foster got hired here after she won the Nobel last year and that if we wanted to register for her class, we'd have to bid really early because it's going to be the hottest ticket on campus. It would be really incredible to study with her."

"Right."

Jane Foster. Thor's Jane. Norah thought of the magazine covers splashed with the couple's image. Gossip news was obsessed with the fact that she seemed to have stopped aging; theories that she'd been given one of Idunn's mythical apples abounded. Surely Jane could put her in touch with Thor if she played her cards right.

"Zach, that's brilliant!" she exclaimed.

~OOO~

Only it wasn't.

Two months into the course, Norah was slogging through problem sets and hopelessly behind on the mathematics necessary for understanding the assignments. Dr. Foster had stated from the outset that she would not be discussing her involvement in SHIELD or her personal life and that to inquire about it was unnecessarily distracting from the class and could be grounds for being automatically withdrawn from the class. Norah respected her professionalism, but it did put a wrinkle into her plan. She should have just dropped the course straight away and taken something easier, but she'd let Zach guilt-trip her into sticking with it.

One evening she returned from a snack break to her small bedroom to find Loki sitting at her desk chair. Hearing her enter, he spun very slowly and deliberately around to face her. A look of pure rage simmered across his features.

"Whthaaat?" she gasped in shock, her mouth still full of the goldfish crackers she was munching on.

"Do you think me unworthy of my titles?" he asked in a low, dangerous tone.

"Huh?!" she blanched in confusion.

His nostrils flared in anger. "Did you think I did not know you were keeping something from me?"

_Oh shit. _Norah realized with a flush of panic that she'd left some of her physics handouts on her desk - papers with the course title and professor's name. She'd been so careful up until now.

"I knew you would be angry. I was right. Look at you, your armor's all in a twist!"

He stood abruptly, flipping the long folds of his tunic behind him harshly, and stalked toward her. "And here I've been helping you with your assignments, thinking that you were putting yourself through this ridiculous ruse to impress that welp of a boy. Yet the entire time I've known something wasn't quite right. How silly of me to chalk it up to your…_inexperience_," he hissed.

It was true. She'd encouraged his misguided assumption about Zach as a cover. She'd lied to Loki by omission and all the while gratefully incorporated the little scribbled notes and corrections he made in the margins of her homework. If only he could have sat for her in-class exams. Even with actual divine aid she was still barely going to pass.

"Oh come on, Loki. You have to appreciate a bit of top notch misdirection. I did learn from the best."

"How dare you lie to _me_, the Liesmith! What are you playing at?" he barked.

"Nothing! I thought maybe I could ask Prof. Foster about Thor. I dunno. It was a dumb idea. We're forbidden to even mention the topic in class."

"To what end? So you could seek out my brother?"

"No, you idiot! So he could help me seek out YOU!"

"Brilliant plan, darling," he mocked, shaking his head in disdain. "All of my efforts to keep you safe and now you would do your best to set SHIELD's goons back upon you. Jane Foster, indeed! That woman will sell you out faster than a whore seeking a quick coin!" he spat venomously, as though the very name was toxic.

"Jesus, she's your sister in law! She's not so bad!"

Loki laughed cruelly. "Jane _marry _Thor? You seem to be under the impression that Asgard would ever tolerate a Midgardian for a queen. No, she is his mistress, regardless of whatever farcical pomp and circumstance they may have undergone on this hunk of mud you call your planet."

"Why are you being so heinously mean to me? Because you fear that I might have succeeded?"

"Yes!" he bellowed, shaking his fists at her.

The single word hurt. It tore deep into her chest, into the place where she held her love for the god. He could be so cutting when he wished. But she would not be deterred. She knew this routine. He only ever pushed her away when she got close to what mattered. Norah set her jaw.

"You cannot stop me," she dared.

He took a measured breathe, collecting himself, and sat back down in the swivel chair.

"You are under the wildly mistaken impression that Thor would - or could - aid you in this quest," he spoke quietly.

"I could convince him."

"I've no doubt that you would try. But you would fail - and most likely spectacularly, getting yourself carried off by SHIELD or worse."

"Why?"

He grew silent, his mouth pressed into a thin, hard line. He'd grown weary of conjuring answers for her questions. How many times had he explained that his life was, quite literally, defined by chaos? By lies? That even contact with his doppelgangers presented certain risks for her? She knew these things firsthand and yet she persisted.

"Why?" she whispered, crouching down in front of his long, splayed legs. Her hand automatically went to his knee, though he'd admitted even these strong projections could not really feel her gesture of comfort. 'Dull, pathetic magicks' he'd called them.

"You once told me I was yours. Did you mean it?"

His gaze snapped back to her. He narrowed his eyes, gauging her. "Absolutely."

"Are you mine, then?"

He licked his lips. It was his only discernible tell as far as she knew; the question had most definitely put him ill at ease.

"I'm a god, darling. I belong to no one," he sneered.

"Then you are not my god?"

"Mere semantics," he scoffed haughtily.

"You are a god that would claim but not be claimed in return?" she clarified. "No one's god, then."

A shadow of pain crossed his face.


	5. A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

Just as he had predicted, Loki's projections weakened over time. Norah hardly noticed at first. Several years later, however, the fact was undeniable. Most days he would show up, folded against a chair or the wall, silent. In his moments of distraction, she noticed a certain haggardness which he failed to conceal. It took shape in the form of tired bags underneath his eyes or his increasingly unkempt hair. Sometimes something in his dress simply seemed off – a slightly disheveled look in the once pin-neat Prince. Tactfully, she avoided ever mentioning it.

There came a day when Loki's magic waned to the point that he could no longer manifest physically. Norah was finishing her bachelor's thesis on gender roles in Viking culture and had just celebrated her 22nd birthday. She had little idea as to what to do next with her life, but in the meantime she had secured a decent desk job at the Field Museum. She moved to an apartment by herself; ditching her roommates seemed like an important step towards adulthood. Loki still came to her – a presence in the air – and she talked to him as though nothing had changed. If neither could do anything to rectify the situation, there seemed little point to arguing about that fact. Norah would feel the telltale crackle of his energy manifest in her small apartment and she'd go about her business, folding laundry or making dinner and chatting away at him.

Tonight she was especially giddy, as she'd settled on her summer plans.

"I've got a month before I start work, so I thought I'd take a trip out west," she explained. "South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana…it should be amazing."

Loki's surprise shivered through the air.

"What? You don't like the idea? Well, I know there's bears and stuff. I'm not planning on doing any back country camping. Just easy peasy car camping at the big parks. I'll be fine. Besides, there's no bilgesnipes in North America, at least not that I know of," she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Norah felt the king gamepiece around her neck grow heavy.

"I know, I know, Loki. You know I won't forget it. I wear it everywhere." She fingered the figurine out of habit. Loki hated when she travelled. Perhaps it took extra energy to find the bewitched charm that served as the gateway connecting them. She wasn't sure. In any event, she wasn't about to stop living her life simply because the god felt grumpy.

In the weeks leading up to her vacation, Loki seemed to linger around her as much as possible. He seemed agitated and unusually mercurial, filling the atmosphere with a sense of unease. Norah tried calming words, but it had little effect. He'd long since lost the strength for speech, so she could only guess at what was bothering him.

A week before her departure, Loki disappeared all together. She suspected he was simply pouting, so she stopped worrying about his odd behavior and focused on enjoying her adventure out west.

~OOO~

The landscapes were phenomenal. The Western sky opened over the world on a scale that seemed impossible and Norah simply could not stop taking photographs. She had nearly filled her SD card with images. The small group of friends she'd ventured with had an absolute blast. They'd hiked through the Tetons, gone fly fishing in Montana, and even done some pretty spectacular trail riding in the Shoshone forests. Sadly, the trip was winding down and now it seemed it would have to be unexpectedly cut short. Ellie, a fellow history major, received an upsetting call from home. Her mother had been hospitalized after having a seizure.

"It's no problem. Why don't I drive you back to Rapid City and the rest of the car caravan can just continue onward."

"Oh, Norah! Could you? I mean it seems really silly to have to double back since we just came from there, but otherwise I'll have to wait until the next big town and who knows when I'll be able to get a flight. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Of course not. You need to get home."

Her old college buddy Zach had come with them as well and quickly piped up. "I could come with you so you don't have to drive all the way back to Chicago alone."

Norah looked at him warily. They were dear friends, but Norah suspected he still nursed a secret crush on her. It was why she'd asked Ellie to be her driving partner in the first place.

"Nah, it's cool. I'll be fine." Zach shrugged coolly and didn't press the issue, much to her relief.

The next day Norah dropped Ellie off at the pitiably small regional airport in Rapid City. She stopped at a gas station on her way back to the main highway in order to gear up for the long drive east. Replenishing her stock of bottled water and Power Bars, she grabbed a free tourist map out of habit. They always had better details on the local roads and were necessary out here where cell reception, not to mention 3G, could still be quite spotty. She perused the map in her car while refueling.

"Wind Cave National Park?" she read aloud. She hadn't heard of the place, but it sounded intriguing. It was also close, perhaps less than an hour and a half away. She'd already driven through the Badlands twice now and it seemed silly to repeat the route yet again. Norah settled on slightly altering her route to check the place out. The group had hit five national parks on this trip, so it would be a point of pride to add another to her list.

The drive, it turned out, was quite short, however the Big Gulp Norah had indulged in was less forgiving. She barely made it to the park bathroom at the ranger station. She was just washing her hands when a dark figure appeared behind her in the mirror. Norah screamed, then clapped a wet wrist over her mouth.

"Oh my god, Loki, you scared the crap out of me!" She doubled over, half-panting from the shock.

He stood before her, fully materialized, a wild look in his eyes.

"How are you!? Are you okay? I can see you!" She glanced down the row of stalls to make sure they were alone.

"What are you doing here, Norah?" he hissed.

"I'm on vacation, silly."

"No. What are you doing _here._"

"I was going to take a tour of the cave. It's one of the biggest in the world, you know."

He had the strangest look on his face.

"What? Should I not?" she asked, suddenly concerned he'd shown up to warn her of some danger.

He licked his lips and winced his eyes shut, clearly struggling with himself.

"You…should not have come here…I…of all the places…"

Norah walked toward him and tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder. She hadn't been able to touch him in years.

"What's wrong?"

Loki avoided her gaze and swore under his breath, shaking his head.

"Norah, you are my bastion, my oasis."

She went to interrupt, but he continued. "You are pure, untouched by my…schemes. I've never even once considered involving you in my life. It is a dangerous world, even for an immortal. I know this…has been a point of contention between us."

"What are you saying? Loki?" she grabbed him by the vambraces, now thoroughly scared.

"I cannot go on like this," he admitted in a bare whisper.

"Like what? Lo? What's happening? Don't leave me. Don't you dare leave me!" She grabbed him, desperate to somehow force his apparition to stay with her.

He met her gaze then with his emerald eyes and she saw there an emotion she didn't know the god could possess.

Loki was wracked with shame.

"Get your things," he ordered soberly.

"What?! Am I going with you?"

"No, worse." he muttered harshly. "You're coming _to_ me. Do you have your knives with you?"

Norah's eyes grew wide. "Yes."

"Good. Bring them and lots of sustenance, as much as you can carry."

"Okay," she said, her voice quivering. She couldn't even believe what he was saying.

"Where do I go?"

"Just take the tour. Wouldn't want you to miss it," he snarked, then vanished.

Ten minutes later she was in line with a large crowd of summer tourists, waiting for the park ranger to lead them into the depths of the cave. Not having thought this plan through, Norah hadn't quite processed that the cave tour involved descending into an enclosed, underground space. . As she threaded down a very steep, narrow staircase cut into the cave floor, she now remembered how extremely claustrophobic she could get. The ranger cheerfully announced that they were some two hundred feet below ground and the mere idea made her woozy. The air temperature began to drop and several times she had to squeeze past two solid rock abutments, only to enter into another spacious room. This place was treacherous and devoid of life.

The tour group paused in one of the larger caverns and the guide offered to show the visitors how the cave looked when first explored at the turn of the 20th century. He lit a candle stuck inside a coffee tin and a fellow ranger cut the artificial lighting system. In the near pitch black, Norah felt a tug on her backback.

"This way," a voice whispered. Loki's doppelganger pulled her in a side room. They waited as the "oohs and ahs" of the group died down and when the lights came back on, they shuffled along the official path out of sight. The cave grew extremely silent. The only sound was Norah's blood pounding loudly in her ears.

"Come. It's a long hike. We should begin." The slim figure leapt gracefully up and pulled himself through a tight passageway above their heads.

The precarity of the situation hit Norah full force.

"Loki, where are you taking me?!"

His head popped back down through the hole. "To me, as I said. This cave has a pathway connecting Asgard with Midgard. I'm at the crossroad at the moment, in between worlds."

"Are you crazy?! Did you hear the ranger? This is the most complex cave system in the world! We'll get lost and I'll die down here!"

"You won't get lost. I've been traveling these paths since I was a boy."

"What if your projection weakens and blips out? I'd be doomed. I'm scared. Can't I just wait here for you?"

The same strange look crossed his pale features. Shame. Guilt.

"I'm doomed without your help," he admitted in a small voice.

"Oh jesus. Okay," she swallowed thickly and reached up for a hand to pull through the opening.

They walked in near silence, scrambling into awkward holes and through narrow, solid walls of rock. Loki conjured a bluish ball of magic light to illuminate their way.

"You can project so clearly through the charm because you're physically near?" she guessed.

He nodded gravely.

After the fourth or fifth winding twist and turn, Norah gave up trying to keep track of where they were headed. She simply had to believe that the god of mischief wouldn't abandon her to die alone in this horrid tomb. His words kept haunting her. _I can no longer live like this…I'm doomed without your help. _She had no idea what to expect when she at long last reunited with the god and she refrained from pestering his uncommunicative projection with questions. She focused on the hike, knowing that a twisted ankle could easily spell disaster.

At one point Loki stopped them and gestured for her to sit and rest. Ever the prince, Norah reminded herself that he must have led many an expedition before. A good leader knew that they were only as strong as the weakest member (in this case her) and she took comfort in the fact that he was setting a steady but not overly treacherous pace.

~OOO~

They trudged onwards. Hours blended into each other. Her feet were aching. Her palms were raw and cut from pulling herself over the sharp granite. They must be terribly deep in the earth, because the temperature had risen significantly. Norah was covered in a layer of sweat and grime.

After they had been walking for what seemed like many hours, she checked her watch.

"That can't be right." She tapped the crystal face. Norah was certain at least an hour had passed since she had last looked at the time, but the dial indicated only a minute.

"How long have we been traveling?"

"That device is useless in here. Time begins to bend the closer we get to the vortex. You would know that if you had ever done any of your physics homework."

She narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

"Well, how long have you been here?"

He cast a sharp look at her. "Long enough."

Loki offered her a lean, pale hand to draw her inexorably forward. She took it, amazed that the immortal's projection could appear so solid. It reminded her of a snatch of poetry from English class. "See infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour."

Loki looked at her in amusement. Apparently, he was familiar with William Blake. "And 'a robin redbreast in a cage puts all of heaven in a rage,'" he said, his smile a bit wistful and cruel.


	6. Betwixt Worlds

The trek was excruciating. The air in the cave grew staler and hotter with each step, making each breath feel more and more like a dying gasp. Loki pressed onward, ducking through a low crevice. It opened into a spacious cavern, but there appeared to be no exit. "Wrong turn?" Norah managed to ask in a pant.

The god contemplated a shiny, rectangular patch of stone that seemed out of place in the wall. He turned toward her, his mouth pressed in a thin, hard line. "Arm yourself. It is time."

Norah shakily pulled out two razor sharp throwing knives from the side pocket of her day pack. Loki took her by the shoulders and steadied her. "You need only react, little Valkyrie. Your blades will do the rest." He pressed a tender kiss to her cheek and turned, casting his arms up theatrically before the rock wall. Bizarre words poured fluidly from his mouth and the surface of the stone shimmered and grew translucent.

Loki disappeared and a rough shove from behind pushed her through the veil shrouding the connection between the two realms. The surface stretched and pulled at her, forcing her to squeeze her eyes closed. When she opened them, nothing could have prepared Norah for what she saw.

On the other side of the veil, in a place betwixt worlds, the god Loki was chained and gagged beneath a monstrous serpent. Norah had fallen as she struggled to move through the viscous texture of the void and her noisy arrival disturbed the great beast. It twisted against its own bindings and hissed, sending caustic ribbons of venom down the left side of Loki's body. He writhed in sheer, desperate agony, the muzzle over his mouth suppressing his screams.

Norah reacted, letting years of martial arts training animate her limbs instinctively. The deadly Asgardian blade sung through the air in a graceful arc and found its mark at the base of the creature's skull. The serpent struggled, then wavered, before slumping over. She went to throw the second knife, just to be sure it was dead, but a hand restrained her. Loki's doppelganger looked over his real form, hands imperiously on his hips. "Oh gods," he gasped, shaking his head in disapproval. He was seeing himself for the first time in a very long while.

Norah ran to him, not even having registered that _this _was the real Loki. How many times had she imagined this moment? Fantasized that they would finally reunite? Presently, there was no time to be wasted savoring it, if there was truly anything to be savored about the horror before her. She pawed the ghastly muzzle, searching for some sort of latch. Deep in the snarls of his matted raven hair behind his head, she found the release.

Loki gasped like a drowned man taking in air. "What do you need? What do I do?" she asked frantically.

"Water," he croaked.

Norah scrambled for her bag. After greedily guzzling several bottles, Loki finally seemed able to speak. She had been pulling hopelessly at the thick chains binding him. She knew these chains. They were the same that had grotesquely bound him on that fateful day in New York. Escape seemed impossible. "Please tell me you have a key."

He mustered a weak laugh. "Just give me a moment."

She unwrapped a Power Bar and offered it to him. "Eech," he cringed, chewing the gummy food with a look of disgust. He swallowed and demanded another bite. Norah obliged, slowly feeding him the rest.

"Loki, how are we going to get you out of this mess?" she asked, running a hand over the horrible choker that bound his neck to the wall. The flesh underneath was raw.

"These chains are one of Odin's more thoughtful gifts to me. They bind my magic. We're going to have to get a little creative, I'm afraid."

"Okay. Tell me what to do."

"Fortunately, you have the sole charm in the nine realms that circumvents these damnable things hanging around your neck. Unfortunately, I'm going to need you to ingest it."

Norah's eyes grew wide. "You have got to be joking." He shot her a look that indicated he was entirely serious.

Norah took the king piece off its cord and inspected it warily. It was the size of a baby carrot, albeit a bit rougher around the edges. She could swallow a carrot whole, right? Without thinking further, she popped it in her mouth and took several quick gulps of water. It went down surprisingly easy.

"Ah, I'm going to apologize in advance for this next bit," he said.

Before Norah could ask what he meant, Loki closed his eyes in concentration and began chanting something in a fast whisper. An unsettling, tingling sensation crawled over her skin and suddenly she felt her vision telescope. Something was pressing at her mind, roughly pushing her down. A searing shock of pain struck in her head as her consciousness was suddenly displaced by something infinitely more vast. There was a god inside her head_. _Loki had projected his doppelganger in her mind. Panic swelled within her and yet it refused to connect to her body. She was no longer driving her own being. She struggled vainly, trying to regain command of her limbs.

Before her, Norah saw her arms outstretch and tendrils of green magic spun from her palms. Her own mouth moved against her will weaving an odd web of foreign words, and Loki's chains abruptly popped open. A wave of nausea crashed over her as the doppelganger disappeared. Her mind was released, slamming back into its proper place, and she promptly vomited. The king piece clattered unceremoniously across the cave floor.

Loki tugged at his restraints weakly, attempting to disentangle himself, while she struggled to right herself. After a few moments, her vision cleared and she rushed to help him. "Here, gently." She spoke soothingly and carefully untangled the cuffs and choker from his body. Once free, Loki slumped down against the wall like a leaden weight. Norah caught him in her arms, cradling his slack head in her lap. "Shhh. I've got you now." Pulling her handkerchief from around her neck, she began to wipe away the snake's poison from his face and neck. The angry, oozing flesh began to heal itself and she let him rest, murmuring quiet reassurances in his ear. He was absolutely filthy, but she refused to be disgusted by it. Someone had done this to him, she thought angrily.

Norah had no idea how much time passed before he opened his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he rolled inelegantly up on one elbow and pulled himself up. "Take it easy, there," she admonished. He let out a sigh and snapped his fingers. The serpent's shackles disintegrated and its heavy body plopped to the ground with gross thud. Loki looked down at the giant beast. "Could you pass me one of those empty bottles, darling?"

With a steady hand, he slowly drew out the blade from the snake's neck with a surgeon's precision. Much to Norah's surprise, he proceeded to coax out a stream of blood from the wound by massaging down its midsection. Satisfied with his prize, he capped the plastic bottle and held it up, sloshing it slightly. "At least there's something to be salvaged from this ordeal. Here. Put that somewhere safe."

Leaning down, Loki began to whisper into the wound and gently stroked his slender hands over the serpent down the length of its back. Suddenly its skin twitched under his hand. "Oh my god!" Norah said, jumping back several yards. "It's alive!"

Loki stood, wiping his hands on his leggings with a self-satisfied smile. The reptile's wound was completely healed. He turned sluggishly, tongue flicking out to test the air. "Run along, now," Loki told the serpent. He pointed toward a patch of glassy rock that Norah now recognized to be a portal. "Might I recommend you go that direction? Midgardians might be a tad confused by the sudden appearance of a basilisk on their realm." The serpent seemed to nod in comprehension and silently slithered off.

"You saved him," she said in awe and confusion.

An rueful look crossed Loki's brow. "He was imprisoned here too."

It struck her then that perhaps she knew far less about the immortal than she thought. After all, she had just experienced the sheer scale of his mind within hers. His knowledge - his very being - was immense and most definitely not human. "Loki the Merciful," she murmured.

He rolled his eyes indignantly. How he managed to remain so sassy when he was so sickly and exhausted from his imprisonment was beyond her. "Shall we?" he asked, offering her a hand.

Norah looked longingly toward the gateway where the great beast had disappeared. "Is that…?" she asked tentatively.

"The way to Asgard? Yes. And no, it is decidedly not an option. I hate to impose myself on your hospitality, but it would seem I'm a bit…homeless…at present."

"Well, Midgard it is, then. Do you think you can make the trek out?"

"I rather had a shortcut in mind." Waving a hand over their heads, he cast a spell that sent little green sparks floating down over them. A few landed on Norah's cheek, tickling her like snowflakes. "Invisibility from Heimdall," he explained. "Ready?"

She adjusted her backpack and made sure her king piece was securely in her pocket. Loki clutched her to his chest and they dissipated, rocketing through the very fabric of space and time.

~OOO~

In an instant, they were back in Norah's living room. Whatever void they had just traveled through had left her with the same disoriented feeling she had experienced when crossing the boundaries between realms. Everything was spinning and Norah pitched over, taking an exhausted Loki down with her. She felt like she had just been chewed up and spit out by the universe. In truth, that was a fairly good approximation of what had indeed happened.

Loki, however, was far worse for the wear. He lay limply on the ground covered in a sheen of clammy sweat. She felt his forehead. "You're burning up!"

"Too much magic," he whispered through parched lips. It took all of her strength, but she managed to get a bit of leverage under one of his arms and heave him up to his unsteady feet. He shuffled along, careening dangerously. By the time she got him to the bathroom, his complexion had gone frighteningly pale. Norah got the water running in the shower and started furiously undoing the copious straps and buckles that held together his complex armor. The pauldron and vambraces were fairly straightforward, as were his boots and gaiters, but after getting his overcoat off, she fumbled stupidly with how his doublet connected to the solid breastplate underneath.

"Help me," she barked, growing desperate. He feebly reached to one fold in the leather, revealing a complicated series of hooks and eyes that attached everything together. Digging around his side, she found another fold with a similar setup. Finally freeing him of the leather tunic, she pulled it over his head only to be hit with a tremendous stench. Norah gagged silently. Her eyes watered from how absolutely foul he was. She hid her face from him, lest he see her reaction. Someone inflicted this indignity on him, she reminded herself.

"Cmon. Up you go. Get out of those pants and into the tub. You'll feel better in a jiffy." She closed the door, leaving the rest to him. A few banging sounds and a thump later and she was satisfied he'd made it into the shower.

In the meantime, she started some soup on the stove and rummaged through her closet for some clothes that would fit the god's lanky frame. She managed to come up with an old AC/DC shirt and a pair of sweats that seemed workable. After twenty minutes, she checked the bathroom door. "Loki?" No response. She rapped lightly. Silence.

Worried, she cracked the door ajar. Through the steamy glass doors, she could see the god crouched, arms tightly wrapped around his legs, head hanging low. The jets of water beat down over him and his long hair was plastered in raven ribbons to his shoulders. He trembled violently - whether from fever or sobbing was unclear.

"Are you okay? Can I get you anything?" She reached in and set the change of clothes down on the toilet seat.

"I am unfamiliar with your unguents," he admitted hoarsely, his face still hidden between his arms.

"Just use that white bar of soap for your skin. The shampoo is in the grey container there on the rack and the tan bottle next to it is conditioner."

"What is conditioner?" he asked sincerely, looking up. His face, like the rest of his body, was zebra streaked with grime and filth.

"Uh, really? Look, just scrub yourself down. Like, twice. I'll come back and help you with your hair." Norah quickly excused herself before she accidentally got an eyeful. The mere thought made her blush and she chastised herself for letting her mind wander so inappropriately.

Loki took his sweet time before emerging wrapped in nothing more than a towel. "Lady Norah?" he called out to her. The one bedroom apartment was small, but well organized and tastefully appointed. He found her in the kitchen. She grimaced when she saw the trail of big wet footprints he'd left on the wood floor, but she held her tongue. Corralling him back into the bathroom, she seated Loki on the edge of the tub and began working a generous squirt of shampoo into his head. He leaned into her massaging fingers, letting out a happy grunt. "We have bath attendants in Asgard," he said absently, eyes closed.

"Really?"

"Hnn…Though I have not had anyone attend me in a very long time. Oooh…there…" He cocked his head and practically purred under her touch.

"Alright, lean back." Norah carefully rinsed out his long mane, trying her best to ignore how his bare chest and arms rippled with definition as he followed her instructions. He'd always seemed incredibly fit, but she had no idea until now that he was actually _cut_. Ridiculously so. And now that she stood over him, working her fingers through the snarls and tangles in his hair, he was also ridiculously close to her. She swallowed and focused on undoing an especially bad knot.

~OOO~

Loki supped quietly, even complementing her on the quick chicken noodle soup she'd whipped up from scratch. His palate was, not surprisingly, quite refined. Most Midgardian food, according to him, tasted 'dead.' Tinned or frozen foods were immediately off the menu, as was anything with preservatives or artificial flavors. Norah had better up her culinary skills if she was going to host him. She didn't especially want to learn what a god-sized temper tantrum looked like.

After settling Loki in bed, she was startled when, a few minutes later, she glanced up from her book and found him sitting across from her in an oversized armchair.

"You're already up? I thought you'd be out for at least a couple hours."

He frowned in thought. "Hnn. Yes. I still am," he murmured in realization. "I've fallen into the Lokisleep. I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't worry."

"Lokisleep?"

"It's how those who eat Idunn's apples recover from trauma. I might be out for a while."

"Oh. That makes more sense. I was about to yell at you for putting those stinky clothes back on. Thank goodness they're just an illusion." He looked down in consternation at his worn tunic and leather leggings. "How long will you be out?"

"I am unsure. It has never happened before."

"Never?"

"I am relatively young."

"Well, take as long as you need, I suppose. How come you can still project?"

He shrugged. "Magic is basic to my nature. I experience this a bit like a dream, albeit one I can control." He smiled, then just to prove his point, conjured at least twenty different projections in the room.

"Oh!" Norah leapt up from the couch in amazement. Each doppelganger was different and varied in age, clothing, and hairstyle.

"I weave them from memories," he explained. "It's a relief to use them freely now. There was so little I was capable of doing through the charm."

"Little Loki!" she gasped in delight as a young one scampered towards her. The child extended a pointy finger toward her and when she touched it, the rascal gave her an electrical zap. "Ow!" She recoiled and the child howled in laughter and disappeared. Looking about the room, she noticed one looked very sickly. "What happened to you?" she asked, turning to him. He gave a look of surprise and vanished. The rest dissipated as well, leaving only the projection in the armchair.

"Loki, what was wrong with that one? When was that?"

He frowned, not immediately responding. "New York," he answered finally, sounding remote.

"You looked like death."

He flinched. "More true than you know."

Hours later, Norah got up to check on the god passed out in her bed. His doppelganger wafted behind her like a friendly shade. Opening the door as quietly as possible, Norah and Loki both gasped in unison. "Oh my god!"

Loki was a shade of deep blue. Norah lunged forward to start CPR, thinking he had stopped breathing. The projection grabbed her, horrified. He clearly didn't expect to see himself like this either.

"Don't!" he screamed, holding her back.

"What's happening!? Is this normal?" She was pushing at the immensely strong illusion before her, his vice-like grip clamped down on her arms.

"It is absolutely _not _normal. Don't touch it! It's skin will flash-freeze you!"

"What the hell do you mean 'it'?! It is _you_!" She was stunned by Loki's panic.

"That vile thing is a monster, a jötunn! It's…I…I mean, it might…It might give you frostbite. Their touch is known to…but I…I don't know…"

Never before had she seen the Silvertongue tongue-tied. Norah stopped struggling against his grip.

"Just let me see you, Loki," she said calmly. "Let's just make sure you're okay. Alright?"

He released her warily and she sank down next to the slumbering god. He looked incredibly peaceful, a stark contrast to the panicking doppelganger pacing at the foot of the bed. Norah tapped a finger against his arm. Nothing happened. She touched him again, this time slightly longer. He felt cool, but his flesh certainly wasn't caustic. It was smooth and supple. She settled a hand on his muscular arm. "See? It's fine." She ran her other hand down his cheek, brushing a tendril of hair off his face and tucking it behind his ear. "This is your true form?"

He looked away in disgust. She took his silence as a 'yes.'

"Why didn't you tell me?" she pressed.

"I did not know myself until very recently," he said quietly.

"You didn't think to expect this, that Lokisleep would do this."

"I know next to nothing about it, thanks to the mendacious, scheming _åsna_ that is the Allfather."

"Okay. So what? You have eternity to understand."

The projection sneered hatefully, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. Subconsciously, he'd morphed from his casual tunic and leggings into a full suit of armor. The stupid horns barely cleared the ceiling.

Norah could have no idea that he had never actually seen himself as he truly was. The horror of his blue, serrated hands wrapped around the Casket of Ancient Winters was enough for him. But Odin knew. Odin had seen him then. And what had Loki seen of himself in his would-be father's eyes? Disappointment. Displeasure. Disgust.

Of course, after his fall from the Bifröst, the creature that had caught him in the void had shown him many things. But those were thoughts, ideas, and images born in the warped haze of torture. Nothing he had been shown of himself could be trusted. It was perhaps the only truth he had extracted from all of these tribulations: Loki could not even trust himself.

Norah ignored the miserable doppelganger and took in the sleeping god. She was contemplating the swirling ridges across his face and body. They were extraordinary, carving out elegant, arching lines over his entire form. "How truly amazing," she said, her voice full of awe. "Loki, you're so beautiful! Look at you!" She grabbed the projection's hand and forced him to her side. His mouth was pressed into a tense line and he looked down at himself contemptuously.

"You're absolutely extraordinary! Who knew that you could be even more handsome? That you are so much more!"

"Some would say 'less is more', darling. I am inclined to agree."

"What do they mean, these lines? Are they unique?"

"They are the mark of Ymir, the Primordial One. The first god. The jötnar are primitives. They haven't evolved since then," he sneered.

She ignored him, instead caressing the ridged marks. Her touch set off a cascade of goosebumps, which rose and pebbled across his azure skin. "It's like a divine, cosmic fingerprint. Astonishing."

"If I'd gone through the initiation rites, those ridges would all be tattooed and ritually scarified. It is as if they aren't happy being ugly as it is; they want to be even more monstrous."

"Oh shut up. That is seriously the most ignorant, racist thing I've heard in a long time." She was astounded by his prejudice. Norah wanted to show him love. She wanted him to feel her acceptance. How could he be so blind to his own beauty? Unable to resist, she pressed a kiss against the lines that crowned his forehead while stroking those stretched across his bared chest. She nuzzled his temple and inhaled the god's intoxicating scent. When she pasted another chaste kiss along the line at the ridge of his cheek, the projection made an audible groan.

"Don't." he gasped, pulling her back gently. "They're…sensitive."

"Oh. Sorry." She said, thinking it felt unpleasant. Then she noticed the hitch in his breath and the bulge that had appeared in the covers. Norah blushed a deep rose, realizing what he meant. She quickly shuffled off the bed. "Oh, god. Sorry," she repeated.

"You can still touch me," the doppelganger offered innocently.

"I know," she said, swallowing hard to overcome her embarrassment. "It's nice that you're so solid now. But I can still tell you're not real."

"That's a rare talent indeed." Only Frigga could ever detect his apparitions. And even if other Aesir knew they were fake, there was certainly no shortage of people who desired the services of his illusions. "Tell me, what gives me away?"

"You lack a pulse and you have no scent." She raised an eyebrow and nodded at the two-foot tall horns soaring atop his helmet. "And you sometimes dress your mood."

"I see."

"Come on," she said, leading him out of the bedroom. "Let's let you sleep."

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Theories? Leave a comment if you have a moment.


End file.
